Pakistan: Media Under Siege

Zeemax:
I already knew it.

#104 Posted by krashid1961,

Good. Please continue. Your thoughts are amusing at best.

Zeemax:
I have passed my eighth grade last year from Maddressah?
I plan to do a research in Fiqh regarding Impact of Islam on Sita white's daughter.

#101 Posted by krashid1961,

I'm wondering, did you ever make it beyond high-school?

#29 Posted by hamidm2,

..... even though after this latest case of turnsherwani by nawaz sharif ...

At the time of this post, I wasn't sure whether he was or wasn't. Since then, the fog has lifted and I was reminded by Ahsan Iqbal's BBC comment that after Nawaz's last deportation in September, he was explained and committed to by King Abdullah that right now Saudia was constrained to retain him, but Saudia will make sure he is not retained beyond November.

Coming to think of it, there were indeed several media reports as well as Nawaz's party statements in the succeeding days that he will be back in November. And he is.

So there isn't any deal or accomodation by Pakistan Government at all. Saudia has kept it's commitment made in September.

To further clarify the above, it has now been established that whatever 'agreement' was there on staying away from Pakistan, it was between Shareef Family and the Saudis. There had been never any deal with Musharraf. This is why when November arrived and Nawaz's return facilitated by Saudia became imminent, musharraf rushed to dissuade Saudis but failed. Now Saudia are sending Nawaz back in the King's own jet laden with gifts and three bullet-proof vehicles plus an official Royal escort.

That's all there's to it.

Zeemax:
I think you are too impressed.
Imran apart from his baggage of Sita whites (and some blacks and brown) is a cunning person by nature. When Javed Miandad was at score of 280 he declared the team to prevent him from making 300. And Javed Miandad later said if he had been informed he would have played fast. Action speaks much much much louder than words. As far as Shokat Khanum memorial hospital. There is Dr. Shamvil Ashraf in Karachi, with no means and started from scratch a cancer hospital. As far as philanthropy Edhi has started from a meagre beginning all from scratch. And here is a man whose whole campaign had been organized by agencies, whose function and fund raising with great Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan were all arranged. Propping up a paper tiger. But who is behind him is and will be the question.

The point of the article below is that Imran Khan may have finally found his constituency in the groundswell of the rising civil-society discontent.

He had always been saying when confronted with the allegation of being a one-seat party, that when his support comes, it will come in a flood. He has proven to be right.

masadi,

You may find this article by Humayun Gauhar of interest:

Caged tiger, angry dragon

Humayun Gauhar (posted 19 Nov 2007)

What an affront to God. Whilst our most corrupt villain of a politician has been let off the hook, our most honest hero of a politician has been arrested under the anti-terrorism act. "It could only happen in Pakistan," many would say spontaneously. I reject this assertion with contempt, for it implies that we are intrinsically a dishonest people who cannot tell the difference between right and wrong.

We most certainly can. It is only that our voices get drowned out by wrongdoers. Right and wrong are not to be confused with cleverness and foolhardiness. I have always placed President Musharraf in the category of people who can differentiate between right and wrong. What has made him go awry of late is the mind-boggling pressure of our convoluted politics and inability to stand up to a hyper-power that is the biggest state terrorist of them all and which has spawned every other type of terrorism that exists today.

All Musharraf wanted to do was exactly what his detractors are hypocritically demanding: hold elections and retire from the army. That is precisely his intention. What is the problem? It is that power hungry politicians who know they will do badly in the elections and Pakistan's American opponents whose real agenda is not democracy but chaos and castration have deliberately made such a production out of it that his intent has got lost in the fog of their diabolical politics.

It has turned the intrinsically democratic Musharraf who always tried to take the path of least resistance into an angry fire-spewing dragon. Confusion caused by the inordinate pressure of a hyper-power has regularly made our rulers take the wrong path. Talking of the right path, it means siraat al mustaqeem. It comes from the Arabic word Sha'r, which means 'path that leads to water', water being the source of life. Sha'r is the root of the word Shariah, which has come to mean law but is actually a code to keep one on the path that leads to water.

Imran Khan's arrest on terrorism charges reminds me of the arrest of the late great Punjabi poet Ustad Daman by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto on terrorism charges. One of his poems had offended the late prime minister. Ustad Daman was charged with keeping grenades in his house. He lived in a small room in the old city of Lahore that has seen more history than any other and more than an American can comprehend.

The room was built next to a well. A window in his room opened into the well and as the water went up he would quickly take some from one of the cups and pour it into his glass of whisky. He laughingly said that he was lucky that the door to his house was so small that PPP goons could only plant grenades there, else they would have shoved in a tank or two. Bhutto's government became the laughing stock of the Punjab.

The manner of Imran Khan's arrest was appalling. Sure in our filthy politics getting arrested comes with the turf, which it should not. But being arrested in this manner, with storm troopers of the Jamaat-e-Islami posing as students locking him up in a room, manhandling him and handing him over to the police is totally unacceptable.

It is dreadful. What makes it indefensible, and therefore unspeakable, is that the authorities booked him under the anti-terrorism act, handcuffed him and sent him to jail. Imran Khan a terrorist? He may be many things, but terrorist he is not. Hero he already is, being the best cricketer in our history, the first of our truly great fast bowlers, one of the greatest all rounders of all time, and certainly one of the greatest captains ever who led us to victory in the World Cup. He is number eight amongst the all time legends. He is in everyone's best Test team from all eras, and in many he is captain. Britain's great opening batsman Geoff Boycott memorably said that the prime reason why he included Imran in his best ever team was that "he could control that mob." People fondly called Imran "Tiger of Pakistan." Imran Khan is a hero to not only every Pakistani, young and old, he is also a hero to the cricketing world, a global celebrity and an international superstar. I know English people who have named their sons after him.

Actually, that's where the story begins. Imran Khan wisely used his celebrity to build a cancer hospital in Lahore in his mother's memory. Everyone said it couldn't be done. I remember a dinner we had in Shezan, London, with British and American doctors of Pakistani extract to discuss plans and strategies for the hospital.

The consensus was that it was too difficult and expensive a task and that Imran would fall flat on his face. Even his family was worried. I was the only one who believed that Imran could do it because I knew him and his tunnel vision and the obsessive way in which he went about achieving an objective. That is not to say that he does it brilliantly. He makes every mistake in the book and then invents some more. But he always gets there in the end because he has his mother's prayers with him and because his intent is selfless. God helped him, and through him he helped cancer-stricken people. The hospital got built, Musharraf inaugurated it and said that he wishes Imran success in his third vocation, politics, and it is running beautifully.

I know Musharraf too. Both he and Imran are my friends. Whenever I felt that they were wrong I always told them so, either verbally or through my writings or even on television. Neither of them may like what I am going to say, but they have many things in common. They both have tunnel vision.

Both achieve their objectives, no matter how many mistakes they make and how ruthless they may have to be along the way. Both are attractive to women. And both have selfless intent. They both want the best for Pakistan even though they might make a hash of in getting there. Musharraf's intent may be right, but treating Imran in this sordid manner is plain wrong. So is arresting his sisters or a policeman shoving his niece into a van. Instead of arresting Imran with such alacrity, the government should have booked the Jamiat students first to demonstrate that they didn't do this at its behest. It has actually helped Imran and harmed Musharraf. It has given Imran an unprecedented political boost and done Musharraf a grave damage.

I was totally against Imran going into politics. I wanted him to continue with his social work and build more cancer hospitals in Pakistan. Politics is a waste of time. I remember one night Imran, his sisters Rubin and Aleema, my late father and I discussed Imran's entry into politics into the wee hours of the morning. We all told him not to and instead concentrate on social work.

He said that he felt frustrated because one could set up one hospital here and another there, but if one wanted to do good on a vast scale one had to be in government to beat bureaucratic red tape and corrupt rulers. None of us bought it. Should Mother Teresa have been in politics, or Edhi? That is another trait he shares with Musharraf: both can be obstinate; both learn the hard way.

Imran's thoughtless arrest and abysmal treatment has appalled international public opinion and international celebrity opinion. They are all Imran's friends or acquaintances. When they speak the world listens. They are icons and role models and mould public opinion. And they are speaking loudly and demonstrating. Jemima has taken the lead and just her photograph standing outside our High Commission gets splashed all over the world. Worse, Imran's arrest has done for the opposition what they were pining and praying for - genuine public support, for if students come out in the streets, especially in Lahore, the cause is eventually won.

Well, that is exactly what is starting to happen. Real students thrashed up the Jamaat activists and had them thrown out of the university. That is unprecedented. Many more have demonstrated since, not only in Lahore but also increasingly in other towns and cities as well. These demonstrations are in danger of snowballing into a full-fledged movement. If that happens, its curtains.

Musharraf should act now to correct this folly and concentrate on our real problems. John Negroponte is intent on achieving America's real objectives, which are to disable our nuclear assets, attack our tribal areas and force Dr A Q Khan to give evidence that nuclear proliferation was state policy, forgetting that most of it was done during Benazir's second government. Installing Benazir in power would enable them to achieve all three. If that doesn't work, break Pakistan. There is a bumper sticker doing the rounds these days: "Be nice to America or they will bring you democracy."

Re: # 92

Massaddi Mian:

"..agent for change ..."

Don't make me laugh. You cannot even feel the change of seasons, unless it is proven by your theory of "self-reference".

BTW, do you even know how to recognize change?

masadi:
Anti USA foreign policy, neither militarily nor ideologically):
Bushji BB or NS ke baad Ek Nazre Karam idher Bhi
Ham Bhi To Parein Hein Rahon Mein.
(Bushji after BB and Nawaz Sharif Look at me also)
( I am also lying in your way please)

Re: # 92

Massaddi Mian:

Your arguments were dead when you showed that you fooled yourself in believing that Godel's theorem allows you "self-reference". Stop kidding yourself. Seriously use your smartness for something more beneficial.

bulleya writes "this will leave a vacuum.......if the americans are lucky, it will be filled by people like imran khan.....who are anti-usa foreign policy (like i am), but not militantly nor ideologically...."

Mr. Clueless you cannot seperate US foreign policy from the ideology of its elite. What you take as "ideology" of the US are mere master symbols for legitimation that veil and mask the real ideology behind the policies and that is a dirty, dark, inhumane ideology that only barbarians who consider the vast majority of humankind expendible can espouse. Imran is no authority on anything, on many issues he is as clueless as you are...

tahmed writes "every time there is a discussion on the serious crisis Pakistan is going through, he floods chowk with posts geared to make chowk posters (myself, quite often) critical of the musharraf government the issue"

You are not critical of Musharraf nor what he represents, you never were but became so because he has fallen out of favor with the Americans. I expose the roots of the problems we face which will throw up a thousand Musharrafs regardless of this one in the future if it is allowed to continue, and unlike you I have been consistent in my condemnation of dictatorship and in pointing to the reason for these current series of crisis in Pakistan, which you have copied and borrowed from my analysis to use in your own myopic view (deliberately to mask US involvment). You are the agent of the Americans but are doing, like a said, a "piss poor" job of defending their propaganda even though you sway in your point of view with whatever happens to be in vogue with the US elite, and they are a hypocritical, immoral, barbarous lot, much like yourself who is their peon...

tahmed wrote "masadi: dont blame hamidm - i red-flagged your posts."

We expect nothing different from immoral cowards

zeemax writes "masadi,

BTW we're still waiting for that rocket ... made in USA, ... Is it still on the way? "

Like I have been saying all along, the US wants to strip its peon of the uniform, either in private by him stepping down which he has been reluctant (to say the least) to do or in public (by a hellfire with a mullah's prints on it aimed for his a$$). Negroponte came with the final warning, and Musharraf started hopping to, but is stopping short of giving up the uniform, not realizing that other than the "uniform" the Americans don't give a damn about the emergency and the prisioners and the media. If he doesnt go through with the final step you can bet hamid's gardner's salary, the hellfire from the Americans will find him....

Regarding Anil and tahmed thinking I'm an "agent"- just because they have been "stumped" by my valid arguments to which they can respond only with ad hominem for discrediting them- let me tell them that I am indeed an "agent", but not an agent for maintaining the status quo but an agent for change in the fulfilment of which purpose, I will not surrender to dimwits like you who have been thoroughly and completely exposed on chowk for being peons of the West whose side you both take even at the expense of stabbing the people of your countries in the back. Go climb a pole for I am here to stay and will expose your bs every opportunity I get...

bjkumar#81:
I don't think in hindu religion there is something against prophetPBUH or Muslims as Islam is a much later religion than hinduism, unless the later addition to hinduism is also very sacred.
In Islam there is no bad mouthing of personalities as such. It is the actions which are told that they are right or wrong. As far as prophets before Islam all of them are revered. As far as idol worship. It is mentioned they they cannot benefit you.
Something are sacred to people. If there is a problem, lets discuss.
As far as secularism and religion mutually exclusive are not true.
One of the initial pioneers of scientific methods Averroes(Ibn-Rushd) was one of the greatest secularist and thinker whose books were taught in Europe for many hundred years. Still he was the Chief Justice in I think Cardova which involved religious knowledge of highest degree.
In the same vein you will find many non religious people who secularism ends by teasing other peoples sentiments.
Secularism as far as I understand is a way of thinking, where you don't invoke supernatural for everyday or any phenomenon.